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questionnaire. The resemblances between this program and those of totalitarian governments in our recent history were all too obvious. The Census Bureau makes more use of computer technology for personal inquiries than anyone.3 39 It conducts surveys for its own uses backed by the criminal and civil sanctions. One of these, the decennial census, asked people such questions as:

Marital Status: Now married, divorced, widowed,
separated, never married.

(If a woman) How many babies have you ever had,
not counting stillbirths?

Do you have a flush toilet?

Have you been married more than once?

Did your first marriage end because of death of

wife or husband?

What was your major activity 5 years ago?

What is your rent?

What is your monthly electric bill?

Did you work at any time last week?

Do you have a dishwasher? Built-in or portable?
How did you get to work last week? (Driver,
private auto; passenger, private auto; subway;
bus; taxi; walked only; other means).

How many bedrooms do you have?

Do you have a health condition or disability which
limits the amount of work you can do at a job?

How long have you had this condition or disability?

Under even heavier sanctions, the Census Bureau puts questionnaires to farmers, lawyers, owners of businesses, and others, selected at random, about the way they handle their business and finances.40

39. See generally Hearings on S.1791 and Privacy, the Census and Federal Questionnaires Before the Subcomm, on Constitutional Rights of the Senate Judiciary Committee, 91st Cong., 1st Sess. (1969) and hundreds of letters and complaints about coercive statistical questionnaires. Appendix also contains judicial, legal and constitutional research materials as well as examples of many social and economic questionnaires. See also Pipe and Russell, Privacy: Establishing Restrictions on Government Inquiry, 18 AMER. UNIV. L. REV. 516 (1969). For a summary of the hearings, see Senate remarks of Senator Ervin, 115 CONG. REC. 17718 (1969). For possible political uses of such information acquired as economic and social indicators, see Report by House Government Operations Committee, Subcommittee on Government Information, on Department of Labor briefings on economic statistics; and 23 WESTERN POL. Q. 235 (1970). See also the finding and recommendations on privacy and confidentiality of the PRESIDENT'S COMMISSION ON FEDERAL STATISTICS (1971).

40. See 1969 Hearings, supra note 39,. testimony on behalf of the National Federation of Independent Business at 199, of attorney and farm owner William Van Tillburg at 74, W. Schliestett, businessman at 66, J. Cannon, attorney at 7,263.

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The Census Bureau also makes surveys for many other departments and agencies.41 For example, they put out statistical questionnaires which the Department of Health, Education and Welfare wanted to send to retired people asking:

- How often they call their parents;

- What they spend on presents for grandchildren;

- How many newspapers and magazines they buy a month;
- If they wear artificial dentures;

-"Taking things all together, would you say you're very
happy, pretty happy, or not too happy these days?"

- And many other questions about things on which govern-
has no business demanding answers.

These people are not told that their answers are voluntary, but are harrassed to reply and are given the impression they will be penalized if they do not answer.

42

There are many other examples of inquiring social and economic data that are backed by the psychological, economic, or penal sanction of government. Clearly, Government has great need for all kinds of information about people in order to govern efficiently and administer the laws well; similarly, Congress must have large amounts of meaningful information in order to legislate wisely.

However, I believe these examples of governmental data collection illustrate my contention that the First Amendment wraps up the principle of free speech, which includes the right to speak one's thoughts and opinions as well as the right to be free of governmental coercion to speak them.

There are other examples of government programs which, wellmeaning in purpose, are fraught with danger for the very freedoms which were designed to make the minds and spirits of all Americans

41. Id. at 830. Table of Census surveys of population and households, conducted for other government agencies, with indication of penalties and compliance techniques. In many of these, the data is kept on tape or film by both the Census Bureau and the sponsoring agency, and the confidentiality rules of the sponsoring agency apply.

42. Id. at 251. Assistant Secretary of Commerce Chartener:

Assistant Secretary of Commerce Chartener: The wording deliberately has been
rather subtle in its form. We never use the word "mandatory" on a questionnaire.
Instead, people will be told that "your answer is required by law." In other cases,
they may be told that a survey is authorized by law or it is important to your
government or something of that sort. Now, the followup procedure is used not
for purposes of coercion but rather in order to verify the correctness of an
address.

Senator Ervin: Do you not agree with me that such a procedure is designed to
implant in the mind of the recipient of these questionnaires the impression that
he is required by law to answer them?

37-583 74 pt. 2 - 3

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free, and which work to keep America a free society. A number of these would be impractical, if not impossible, without the assistance computer technology and scientific data processing.

It is those First Amendment freedoms which are the most precious rights conferred upon us by our Constitution: the freedom to assemble peaceably with others and petition government for a redress of grievances; the freedom to worship according to the dictates of one's own conscience free of government note-taking; the freedom to think one's own thoughts regardless of whether they are pleasing to government or not; the freedom to speak what one believes whether his speech is pleasing to the government or not; the freedom to associate with others of like mind to further ideas or policies which one believes beneficial to our country, whether such association is pleasing to government or not.

The Secret Service

In the pursuit of its programs to protect high government officials from harm and federal buildings from damage,43 the Secret

Mr. Chartener: If it is a mandatory questionnaire that would be the case. In other
instances, the repeated mailings which may go up to five or may involve telephone
calls or even a personal call are simply a means of emphasizing the importance
that the Government feels in getting this response....

The Department of Commerce opposed enactment of a simply-worded statute advising people that their responses to these statistical questionnaires were voluntary. Id. at 262.

Senator Ervin: Would the Department of Commerce and its Bureau of the Census
be opposed to enactment of Federal statutes which would require that the Bureau
of the Census advise every citizen on a questionnaire sent out by the Bureau that
where it is not required by law, not mandatory, this is an effort to elicit informa-
tion desired by the Government on a voluntary basis?

Mr. Chartener: Senator, I think we would oppose that. This is a matter of rather
subtle psychology. I do not think, personally, and this is the position of the
Department, that we ought to go out of our way to tell people they do not need
to bother filling out this questionnaire

Senator Ervin: You think the statutes governing those questionnaires, which are
mandatory and which are subject to the criminal penalty if not answered readily,
are understandable by the average layman?

Mr. Chartener: I do not think any law is written to be readily understandable by
the average layman. That is why we have lawyers.

But compare the testimony of the Secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare in the 1971 Hearings at 788, opposing legislation, but favoring administrative notice of voluntariness for that Department's forms.

43. 115 CONG. REC. 3356 (1969) and guidelines printed there. See also note 17, supra, correspondence and guidelines printed at 1541, 1971 Hearings, Part II. See remarks of

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Service has been pressured to create a computerized data bank. Their guidelines for inclusion of citizens in this data bank requested much legitimate information but also called for information on "professional gate crashers;" "civil disturbances;" "anti-American or anti-U.S. Government demonstrations in the United States or overseas;" pertaining to a threat, plan, or attempt by an individual or group to "embarrass persons protected by the Secret Service or any other high U.S. Government official at home or abroad;" "persons who insist upon personally contacting high government officials for the purpose of redress of imaginary grievances;" and "information on any person who makes oral or written statements about high government officials in the following categories: (1) threatening statements, (2) irrational statements, and (3) abusive statements.'

Americans have always been proud of their First Amendment freedoms which enable them to speak their minds about the shortcomings of their elected officials. As one in political life, I have myself received letters I considered abusive. Similarly, I have uttered words which others have deemed abusive. While I am not a "professional gate crasher," I am a malcontent on many issues. I have written the President and other high government officials complaining of grievances which some may consider imaginary; and on occasion, I may also have "embarrassed" high government officials.

One man wrote me his concern about this program and commented:

The Secret Service ought to go after my mother-in-law, too.
On her last visit she said that the Vice President doesn't
seem to have too many brains. She also said that Senator
has a face like a carbuncle. Should I report this to the
Secret Service?4 4

There is no doubt that the physical protection of the President and high government officials is a legitimate government purpose and all reasonable means must be taken in pursuit of it. Nevertheless, such broad and vaguely worded standards for investigating and adversely reporting Americans to their government on the basis of their utterances could, at one time or another, include most members of Congress and most politically aware citizens. It could cover heated words exchanged in political debate and discussion anywhere in the country. Yet civil and military officials throughout the Federal

Rep. Stanton, 118 CONG. REC. at H208 (daily ed. Jan. 24, 1972) [Complaints Against Secret Service].

44. Letter in Subcommittee files.

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government and in some local law enforcement agencies were requested to report people coming to their attention who were thought to fit these criteria.

The Subcommittee has not received complete answers to our questionnaire on the subject of this computer and the national reporting system it serves. However, we have indications that other broad and zealous information programs, including the Army civil disturbance system,45 are sharing or feeding on entries which, if not carefully evaluated, may produce serious consequences for the rights and privileges of citizens. Illustrating the misunderstandings and misinterpretations possible is the fact that military doctors have expressed to me their concern about an allegedly "secret" agreement between the Defense Department and the Secret Service which they were told was a recent one and which required reporting of all servicemen receiving administrative discharges. One psychiatrist writes of his concern for the confidentiality of medical records in such action:

I see very little reason for this. My impression of the indivi-
duals whom I recommended for such a discharge was that
these were immature individuals who were not able to
adapt to the service for one reason or another. Not by any
stretch of the imagination were these individuals unpatriotic
or a threat to the security of the nation.4

46

When I asked the Secretary of the Navy about this, the Subcommittee was informed that a person is not reported to the Secret Service merely because he received an administrative discharge from the Navy or Marine Corps.4 However, we were informed that Pursuant to Naval regulations issued under a secret 1965 Agreement,"

47

45. See Department of the Army Civil Disturbance Information Collection Plan, May 2, 1969, collection priorities and requirements and distribution list for government agencies. Printed in 1971 Hearings at 1126, 1136. This plan also appears with remarks of Senator Bayh, 117 CONG. REC. 2290 (daily ed., Mar. 2, 1971).

46. Letters in Subcommittee files (identities withheld).

47. Letter of inquiry from Subcommittee Chairman, July 6, 1971, citing the large number of reasons for which a person can receive an administrative discharge, ranging from family hardship to national security grounds, the inadequate procedures and safeguards surrounding such discharges, and the threat to individual freedom from unrestricted reporting of law-abiding citizens, who may become subjects of official surveillance through no fault of their own or of the Secret Service.

48. This December 14, 1965 agreement between the Defense Department and the Secret Service was implemented within the Navy Department by SECNAV Instruction 5500.27, 18 March 1966, which contains a copy of the agreement. Administrative authority for this regulation is cited as Defense Dept. Directive 5030.34, dated 30 Dec. 1965; statutory authority for assistance to the Secret Service is cited as P.L. No. 90-331 (June 6, 1968) which provides for assistance to the Secret Service on request.